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Post by aeson on Sept 5, 2022 19:19:47 GMT -6
I will note that it is already possible ingame to allow a player to divert accumulated funds to economic development. You just need to edit your save game file. Subtract from the variable "Funds" and add to the variable "BaseResources" in the save game file. Save-file editing is in no way, shape, or form something that is "already possible in-game."
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Post by benjamin1992perry on Sept 5, 2022 20:44:04 GMT -6
What could be interesting as a way to increase your national resources is a event where your national leader asks you to which profitable territory held by another power or unowned territory you feel best able to invade and hold and trigger a war that way. such as taking over the Suez Canal or the Panama canal or one of the oil producing territories.
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Post by dorn on Sept 5, 2022 23:50:20 GMT -6
I will note that it is already possible ingame to allow a player to divert accumulated funds to economic development. You just need to edit your save game file. Subtract from the variable "Funds" and add to the variable "BaseResources" in the save game file. The relationship between the two changes should follow: GrowthRate * ChangeInFunds/12 = ChangeInBaseResources. Thus if you want to allow the player controlled country to invest in its economy with a 5% rate of return, then a 60 million decrease in Funds would increase BaseResources by 250,000. Just keep in mind that both variables are stored in the save game file in thousands, so you'd decrease Funds by 60,000 and increase BaseResources by 250. Historically, GDP growth rates for developed nations in this era were in the 1-2% range, with countries at the higher end of that range generally accomplishing those rates via higher population growth rates. Real interest rates were in a similar range, so it'd be hard to justify rate of returns to government sponsored entities over 3-4%. Once you contemplate those sorts of returns, you realize that you have a time to breakeven of 25-35 YEARS. Since your next war is probably going to happen before that, it kind of puts a damper on the "invest to win" strategy. That having been said, I've played around with this and with allowing R&D expenditures to go beyond 12% (again by editing the save game file), and the "invest to win" strategy does become really, Really, REALLY dominant once you start having reinvestment rates of 8% or higher. And when I say dominant, I mean like Spain > Great Britain dominant. It kind of proves Einstein's point when he said, "Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe". It's just true. Hands down true. Economy does not work this way. The difference between spending or not spending budget is really minimal. Because if you not spent the funds, you are actually lowering GDP, if you spend it elsewhere, your GDP remain the same. The only difference is if you invest in same areas (infrastructure, R&D) that brings you some return, however this return will be really small percentage of your funds. As your funds is really small percentage of GDP you are speaking in amounts about 0.01-0.05 % of GDP in case of yearly naval funds. In reality it would be even less as pushing money in certain field of interest does not bring you return because you not get effectivenes if it is one time boost.
RTW has a lot of type events which has effect relating to budget. Social spending, infrastructure event, I think even railroad events. These events are abstracted in good way, yousing triangle between naval funds, economy grow and population discontent.
But main point is you are head of navy, not prime minister to decide where budget goes. You use budget available.
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Post by dorn on Sept 5, 2022 23:54:08 GMT -6
What could be interesting as a way to increase your national resources is a event where your national leader asks you to which profitable territory held by another power or unowned territory you feel best able to invade and hold and trigger a war that way. such as taking over the Suez Canal or the Panama canal or one of the oil producing territories. You can do it even now. Just send during war your fleet in that area and invade that possession.
Foreign policy is managed by government which is abstracted in game but there are events when governments (prime minister) ask you about foreign policy and you can influence it. But as head of navy, you are not the one that shapes it.
Think about reponsibilities and possibilities that have heads of navies even today. This is what you can do and this RTW simulates quite nicely even if it is in abstracted way.
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Post by xenontennessee on Sept 6, 2022 2:46:29 GMT -6
I am not sure about whether it is reasonable for a navy commander to support economic development. However I like the idea of investing in fast passenger liners at peace time, considered as CVs to be refitted, and make some contribution to economic growth (although little). This could be more authentic than building them into AMCs at war in RtW2.
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Post by macroeconomics on Sept 7, 2022 16:52:34 GMT -6
>Economy does not work this way. The difference between spending or not spending budget is really minimal.
Actually it does (can) work this way. Sure the amount of money spent vs. invested in your naval budget is small relative to the national economy. But your assumption is that any money invested rather than spent in the naval budget contributes to national GDP growth generally. That is wrong. The presumption is that such investments are made in naval industries specifically and then those newly established firms are owned by the navy. And thus future output from those firms does not just increase national GDP generally but increases naval expenditures specifically.
Historically, the use of government (in particular military) expenditures for the purpose of purchasing (investing) in capital goods/development is unusual but not extraordinary. Certainly more common in pre-modern, pre-capitalist societies. The construction of government owned, military dedicated smithies is a pre-industrial example. The construction of production arsenal facilities in China in the latter half of the 19th century is an example that covers part of the RTW3 game timeline. As is the production of military factories in the USSR.
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Sept 8, 2022 16:51:28 GMT -6
What could be interesting as a way to increase your national resources is a event where your national leader asks you to which profitable territory held by another power or unowned territory you feel best able to invade and hold and trigger a war that way. such as taking over the Suez Canal or the Panama canal or one of the oil producing territories. You can do it even now. Just send during war your fleet in that area and invade that possession.
I think I'm missing something here. The Suez canal, the Panama canal, the Gulf are all very juicy targets but I don't know how you can take Suez unless you are Italy and the RN has become a second rate navy (French possessions in the Eastern Med are not shown in the game). And forget about Panama, too far to be invaded from the nearest possession, doesn't matter how big your fleet is. Or the oil producing Persian Gulf which in the game is blank and does not have any possession we could invade at all. 90% or more of the possessions in the game cannot be invaded because either they are too far from the nearest posession (India, Burma, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand... ) or they are part of a home nation, which we are forbiden to invade. I don't know. maybe it's better like this, if we want to keep it mainly a naval game. But I guess there could be an argument to make theoretically possible to invade naval strategic small islands like the Falklands, Midway, Marshall islands and the like, either for their own strategic value or just to get closer to the enemy's home territory. As it stands now the US navy, for example, cannot even get rid of the Brits in the Caribbean because Trinidad is too far to be invaded. Also they cannot invade Bermuda for the same reason. And if fighting an European power they will risk losing any damaged ship sent to Europe or the Med because they do not have any bases there and they cannot invade anything there as it is too far. Of course in real life in WWII they had the UK as base in Europe. Had that country fallen, the USA would have to invade some territory closer to the continent before they could build something like Overlord. In the Pacific they crossed that ocean from island to island before they got in range to prepare for the invasion of Japan, scheduled for late 1945. Is this kind of strategic war game that I think RTW2 cannot really replicate.
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Post by dorn on Sept 8, 2022 23:15:14 GMT -6
You can do it even now. Just send during war your fleet in that area and invade that possession.
I think I'm missing something here. The Suez canal, the Panama canal, the Gulf are all very juicy targets but I don't know how you can take Suez unless you are Italy and the RN has become a second rate navy (French possessions in the Eastern Med are not shown in the game). And forget about Panama, too far to be invaded from the nearest possession, doesn't matter how big your fleet is. Or the oil producing Persian Gulf which in the game is blank and does not have any possession we could invade at all. 90% or more of the possessions in the game cannot be invaded because either they are too far from the nearest posession (India, Burma, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand... ) or they are part of a home nation, which we are forbiden to invade. I don't know. maybe it's better like this, if we want to keep it mainly a naval game. But I guess there could be an argument to make theoretically possible to invade naval strategic small islands like the Falklands, Midway, Marshall islands and the like, either for their own strategic value or just to get closer to the enemy's home territory. As it stands now the US navy, for example, cannot even get rid of the Brits in the Caribbean because Trinidad is too far to be invaded. Also they cannot invade Bermuda for the same reason. And if fighting an European power they will risk losing any damaged ship sent to Europe or the Med because they do not have any bases there and they cannot invade anything there as it is too far. Of course in real life in WWII they had the UK as base in Europe. Had that country fallen, the USA would have to invade some territory closer to the continent before they could build something like Overlord. In the Pacific they crossed that ocean from island to island before they got in range to prepare for the invasion of Japan, scheduled for late 1945. Is this kind of strategic war game that I think RTW2 cannot really replicate. You can invade Suez if you beat Royal Navy, which is reasonable. Panama can be invaded from the Caribbean (not certain as I am not with the game right now) but neverthless value of Panama is dubious for any nation except USA for which is strategic asset. Australia cannot be invaded and I think it is good as it would be enormous task which in history probably only 1945 USA can achieve. RTW is about head of navy and his responsibilities and politics, land invasion are just background. It is not about waging land wars, dominating world etc.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Sept 9, 2022 9:05:39 GMT -6
You do need to fight Great Britain to capture the Suez Canal, but you don't need to invade Egypt to do this. I have taken Suez as Japan because I was determined to establish a Japanese presence in the Mediterranean (purely a roleplaying goal). I had previously established a colony on Sardinia, but I could not hold it because of the time it took to steam reinforcements around Africa, so I decided I needed to take possession of the Suez Canal. I first established a colony in the Indian Ocean on the east coast of Africa, taken as a war prize. I slowly built it into a fairly major base and stocked it well with aircraft. Great Britain objected to this series of actions, declared war and sent a major fleet into the Indian Ocean. I decisively defeated them in an extended war and then took Egypt as a war prize. This was about a 15-year process.
Sometimes in RTW you have to play the long game.
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Post by zederfflinger on Sept 9, 2022 9:38:39 GMT -6
You do need to fight Great Britain to capture the Suez Canal, but you don't need to invade Egypt to do this. I have taken Suez as Japan because I was determined to establish a Japanese presence in the Mediterranean (purely a roleplaying goal). I had previously established a colony on Sardinia, but I could not hold it because of the time it took to steam reinforcements around Africa, so I decided I needed to take possession of the Suez Canal. I first established a colony in the Indian Ocean on the east coast of Africa, taken as a war prize. I slowly built it into a fairly major base and stocked it well with aircraft. Great Britain objected to this series of actions, declared war and sent a major fleet into the Indian Ocean. I decisively defeated them in an extended war and then took Egypt as a war prize. This was about a 15-year process. Sometimes in RTW you have to play the long game. Did Great Britain actually declare war on you because in built up a colony in East Africa, or was that just some in-the-head reasoning for why you went to war with them? I was unaware that building up colonies could increase tensions, at least if that is what you are alluding to here.
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Sept 9, 2022 9:54:40 GMT -6
You do need to fight Great Britain to capture the Suez Canal, but you don't need to invade Egypt to do this. I have taken Suez as Japan because I was determined to establish a Japanese presence in the Mediterranean (purely a roleplaying goal). I had previously established a colony on Sardinia, but I could not hold it because of the time it took to steam reinforcements around Africa, so I decided I needed to take possession of the Suez Canal. I first established a colony in the Indian Ocean on the east coast of Africa, taken as a war prize. I slowly built it into a fairly major base and stocked it well with aircraft. Great Britain objected to this series of actions, declared war and sent a major fleet into the Indian Ocean. I decisively defeated them in an extended war and then took Egypt as a war prize. This was about a 15-year process. Sometimes in RTW you have to play the long game. I still think the strategic side is a bit underdeveloped in RTW2. But you're right, we can pretty much overcome these issues using events and war prizes to get bases in sea areas were we do not have any. It may be better like this and I'm happy with it.
Something else. Maybe holding key strategic possessions like Gibraltar, Suez, Panama (after 1914), Singapore, Falkland Islands, Southern Africa could affect GDP too. Those are key strategic possessions for worldwide commerce and control of the oceans. Maybe those possessions should impact the GDP during a war both if you own them (positively) or if your enemy owns them (negatively), as they would impair your own international commerce if the enemy holds them (they would increase enemy merchant shipping loses). Pre-set key strategic possessions may be a more sensible way to impact GDP and merchant shipping than some blockades as it stands now. That the USA is "blockaded" while not an enemy ship is in the Caribbean or the West Coast is a bit controversial. Is this happening to France or Spain too, with coasts both in the Atlantic and the Med?
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Post by jwsmith26 on Sept 9, 2022 10:40:37 GMT -6
You do need to fight Great Britain to capture the Suez Canal, but you don't need to invade Egypt to do this. I have taken Suez as Japan because I was determined to establish a Japanese presence in the Mediterranean (purely a roleplaying goal). I had previously established a colony on Sardinia, but I could not hold it because of the time it took to steam reinforcements around Africa, so I decided I needed to take possession of the Suez Canal. I first established a colony in the Indian Ocean on the east coast of Africa, taken as a war prize. I slowly built it into a fairly major base and stocked it well with aircraft. Great Britain objected to this series of actions, declared war and sent a major fleet into the Indian Ocean. I decisively defeated them in an extended war and then took Egypt as a war prize. This was about a 15-year process. Sometimes in RTW you have to play the long game. Did Great Britain actually declare war on you because in built up a colony in East Africa, or was that just some in-the-head reasoning for why you went to war with them? I was unaware that building up colonies could increase tensions, at least if that is what you are alluding to here. Building colonies in a region that is important to a nation can increase tension with that nation. This typically occurs when you are increasing your airbase strength in a nation's home region. This action perhaps does not create a strong reaction in the European theatre, probably because there are so many overlapping home regions, but if a foreign nation builds up airbases in NE Asia, Japan is definitely going to object and tensions will rise. I don't know explicitly that my building of bases in Tanganyika caused a rise in tension with Great Britain, but I do know that I took every opportunity provided by the game to increase tensions until I goaded GB into a war. Once a war began, I invaded the small British colony of Zanzibar, which is just offshore of Tanganyika and well within range of the two airbases in Tanganyika that I had spent years building up. If you want to encourage naval battles, one of the best ways to do this is to invade an enemy colony. The enemy will often try to defend against the invasion. In this case, GB sent a large fleet to contest the invasion, which was decisively defeated by my superior land and carrier-based air in the waters off Zanzibar, leading to their eventual loss of the war and my claiming Egypt as a war prize.
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Post by macroeconomics on Sept 9, 2022 13:00:04 GMT -6
I hope that from a game design standpoint RTW3 doesn't get too wed to "the player is the head of the navy so he can't do anything other than navy stuff" philosophy. In RTW2 there are plenty of events where the player can unilaterally affect non-naval issues. That is way beyond the power of a "head of a navy". During wartime for example, the player, not the Chief of the Armed Forces decides whether to back periodic land offensives. During peacetime, the player, not the Foreign Minister or Head of State, decides how to respond to geopolitical crises such as assassinations, ship sinkings, colonial crises, etc. This is done because it makes for a better game. If the player didn't have any control over matters affecting him (her), then player disassociation can occur. The flip side is that you need to have some non-player initiated shocks in the game otherwise the game becomes boring. So there's a fine balance in figuring out how much player agency to have in a game. In RTW2, I think the balance struck worked out fairly well - it certainly placed the line beyond what a "head of the navy" could do, but it kept the focus on naval matters. I think the design goals in RTW3 will be similar.
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Post by dorn on Sept 9, 2022 14:17:31 GMT -6
I hope that from a game design standpoint RTW3 doesn't get too wed to "the player is the head of the navy so he can't do anything other than navy stuff" philosophy. In RTW2 there are plenty of events where the player can unilaterally affect non-naval issues. That is way beyond the power of a "head of a navy". During wartime for example, the player, not the Chief of the Armed Forces decides whether to back periodic land offensives. During peacetime, the player, not the Foreign Minister or Head of State, decides how to respond to geopolitical crises such as assassinations, ship sinkings, colonial crises, etc. This is done because it makes for a better game. If the player didn't have any control over matters affecting him (her), then player disassociation can occur. The flip side is that you need to have some non-player initiated shocks in the game otherwise the game becomes boring. So there's a fine balance in figuring out how much player agency to have in a game. In RTW2, I think the balance struck worked out fairly well - it certainly placed the line beyond what a "head of the navy" could do, but it kept the focus on naval matters. I think the design goals in RTW3 will be similar. This is exactly what RTW do, let player be head of navy.
The events you describe are inline with being head of navy. Head of navy will certain give government feedback about possiblities invasions, colonial crisis etc. as the navy ships were very important assets to fight rebellations and other things. It was not uncommon especially at change of century, that one cruiser with complement turn side of land battles in colonies.
Just give yourself question, what branch of military is responsible for tank being used for the first time.
Responsibility and power to influence politics were in hand of head of navy, certainly differently from nation to nation. However this power was still limited as the government was the power to steer country, not head of navy.
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Post by macroeconomics on Sept 9, 2022 16:50:23 GMT -6
>The events you describe are inline with being head of navy
No, they are not. They are events in which it can be expected that the head of the navy has input which would influence a final decision by the top of the political/monarchical apparatus. But in RTW2 the player has full control over those decisions.
>Responsibility and power to influence politics were in hand of head of navy, certainly differently from nation to nation. However this power was still limited as the government was the power to steer country, not head of navy.
Exactly. Which is why when we see the player has (in some instances) full political control, we acknowledge that the game designer(s) do not slavishly follow a "you are the head of the navy" design. Head of the Navy is the closest description to what the player does. But it goes beyond that. The Head of the Navy does not decide when to enact social reform programs. But the player does in RTW. The Head of the Navy does not decide when Destroyer Division 2 turns to port by 15 degress. But the player does in RTW. It makes for a better game that way. And I believe that is the higher priority in RTW3 as well, not some philosophical devotion to "the player can only do what the head of the navy does".
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